Week 19: Growth

This week went a little better than last week. I still didn't get anything great, but I felt like I had a little bit more time to take some photos. During the weekend I sat and thought and came up with four ideas and that was much easier to shoot during the week. I still only got six photos this week, so hopefully I'll get seven next week.

I did a similar photo to this one a couple of weeks ago, but I figured the same effect would be good for this week. Beard growth is best seen when back-lit. I discovered something helpful this week, I can use a ladder as a light stand. It made it so much easier to clamp my light to it and then just move the ladder around. It's not ideal, and an actual light stand would be nice, but for now this works well.

This photo shows my growth as a photographer, or at least my attempt to grow. I saw a video this week on how to take better portraits by emphasizing jawline, it was amazing. I was dubious at first, but it really is an amazingly simple trick. You have your subject bring their forehead and jaw out to the camera. From the side it would look weird, but head-on you can't tell that they're sticking their head out. Below I have two examples. On the left I stood like I normally would if I was taking a picture, on the right I stuck my head out. My beard helps with jaw definition, in general, but the right photo still shows so much more definition. Definitely something I will do with portraits from now on. This technique can also be used from the side, you just have the subject stick the side of their head toward the camera. Here's a link to the video: http://vimeo.com/35732667

I haven't done a silly shot in a while, so this was my attempt. I liked the idea, but the execution was a little off. It's hard to make a composite image look real, especially when both subjects are you. This is what I imagine I would look like if I was actually seven feet tall.

This photo is an example of my growth in running. I took this right after running six miles. And while that is nowhere near the longest I've ever run, it's the longest I've run in this current plan. So I guess that's something.

I got pretty lucky with this shot. We've had these flowers start to grow up through some rocks in front of our house. I knew I was going to take a picture at some point, but then I got lucky and it started snowing. It stopped snowing, leaving just enough of the flower pushing out through the snow.

This one also didn't turn out great, and I've done other long exposures like this that were better. The kind of interesting thing about taking this shot is I actually had a flash trigger in my hand and stood in complete darkness. I left the shutter open and just pressed the trigger every time I got into position. A little different way of doing long exposures.

Week 18: Work

I was sick for a good part of this week, and the photos definitely suffered. I was having a really hard time finding inspiration and motivation. It didn't help that I was traveling for three days this week. I'm hoping to get on track for next week's theme.

I just got some new collar stays for my work shirts, I'm pretty excited about them. Only problem is that a lot of my shirts don't have the little pockets for them. Time to get creative with some cutting and sewing.

It's hard work to do heart rate training AND drink whiskey.

This was a couple of days after I got really sick. I slept until 12:45 in the afternoon then tried to get dressed and go to work. As you can probably guess from the photo, that did not happen. 

This is another photo from the 'animal eats everything under the hood of my car' series. While I was driving to Madison I got stuck in a rain storm, without wipers, and the storm wasn't moving. I didn't have wipers because the animal ate a 4-inch chunk out of the wiper motor harness. Fed up with waiting around for rain that would never end, I bought some cable, some butt connectors, and rewired the motor harness. This photo is my handiwork. 

We have a door at work where the wood grain has an awesome kind of screaming fire face. I tried to get the face to pop a bit more by using HDR and then adding more contrast with the B&W. 

Only five pictures this week since I was sidelined with the sickness. Hopefully I'll get back on track next week.

Week 17: Excitement

I'm still trying to get the hang of taking pictures while working. I think it's getting a little easier, but I still don't have the time to think creatively. I've started trying to think about the theme while I lay in bed and I'll make notes of ideas I have. That makes it much easier to execute during the week.

We keep the door to the washing machine open all the time to let it dry out, so every time I go into the laundry room I can see into it. Lately I've noticed how interesting it looks. I took a static shot of the inside, then started to spin it slowly while keeping the shutter open. Then I took a third shot, spinning it faster. I feel like it captures the excitement (or terror) of what it would be like to be inside the washer while it is spinning.

Excitement can mean different things to different people. To me, excitement means getting a shipment of ten brand new computers from Dell. 

We have these cat figurines that shows them in an excited pose. Instead of just taking a picture of the figurine, I put two of them inside the light umbrella and fired a flash at them to give me the silhouette.

This is kind of the opposite of exciting, rolling out my IT band with a foam roller. 

More of the same, icing my knee after a run. 

This genuinely was exciting, plotting the route from Manhattan to Madison for the weekend. 

Excitement of the not-so-fun variety. After getting part way from Manhattan to Madison I tried to turn the windshield wipers on, and they didn't work. After pulling off the highway I open the hood to discover an animal had chewed off a bunch of wires and plastic. It made for a very exciting rest of the drive. This is just a small sample of his handiwork. 

Week 16: Old and New

Second week trying to do this project with a full-time job. Once again the photos suffered, but I found it a tad easier to work it in. Hopefully it continues to get easier. The biggest problem isn't finding time to take the photos, it's finding the motivation, but more importantly, finding the motivation to think creatively. It would work great if I could come up with ideas while at work and then just execute them when I get home.

This first photo is what sparked the idea for this week's theme. I just got a new Garmin running watch and have been playing around with all of the features. I didn't like the original them for this week, so I decided to come up with a new one, and thought it would be interesting to do photos that have some element of new and old in them. This one was obvious. I have this weird problem where I assign feelings and personality to inanimate objects, so seeing this photo, I felt bad for my old trusty running watch, relegated to spending the rest of its life in a drawer.

I kind of liked the concept of this photo, but the execution was pretty terrible, or the just wasn't a way to make the subject interesting. The other weekend I removed some crappy looking lights in our kitchen and replaced them all with recessed lighting. The only problem was that the paint and drywall under, under the light I removed, was cracked and painted a different color. Since the recessed light is smaller than that light, I have a pretty crappy looking part of ceiling that I need to fix at some point. I figured it worked well with the theme of old and new, but there's not much of anything interesting in old paint and a recessed light. So I decided to make things more interesting in post-processing. I turned the image into a negative and now I have a photo that I actually find kind of interesting. The blob on the right is a lens flare. You can kind of see the outline of the old light.

Old scotch and slightly less old scotch. Both good. 

This is not a good, or interesting photo, but it does fit my theme and it gave me an excuse to document some cabinet work. Amy and I really don't like the look of our kitchen cabinets, so I decided to do a test and paint the end cabinet white. I think it's going to turn out well. And yes, that's Dilly on the counter being naughty. 

Ham the Astrochimp. He signifies the newness of the space program, with the old of chimpanzees. Ham was the first chimpanzee sent to space. 

I'm not exactly sure what this has to do with old and new, but I liked it anyway. I could make up some story about how a plumb-bob is used in both new construction and old home remodels, but it's a bit of a stretch. 

This is easily my favorite image of the week. I'm not exactly sure why the best image is often at the end of the week. Maybe it's because I've exhausted the obvious photos, or that I've had the week to really let things set in, but it consistently happens. It also wasn't the first iteration I did, showing that it's often not enough to just take one photo and be done, you have to work and refine to get what you want.

I shot this with a 100mm macro attached to my camera and a 50mm lens in between my camera and the old PowerShot. I really love the composition of this and how the camera is in focus through the lens, but blurred outside of it.

Week 15: Cold

This theme was a little ironic at first because it got to 65 during the first day. Then the weather decided to cooperate. This is the first week's worth of photos I've done since working full time, and my photography has suffered because of it. It's much harder to find the motivation and have time for the creativity when you're working all the time. Oh well, I have to remember that the purpose of this isn't to produce fantastic photos every day.

I set an ice-cube on a plate and just waited until I got the shot I wanted. This one reflected the sunlight just right. 

 Nothing says cold like bundling up...and being a ninja. Phoned this one in a bit.

I was sitting in the house the other day wondering why it felt so cold. I looked at the thermostat and it was set for 58, what the hell. The ironic thing is that our furnace crapped out later in the week and the temperature got down to 50 degrees. Fun stuff. 

We get some nice ice crystals that form on one of our windows. 

What do you do when it's cold out, ride the trainer inside. I really like shots that have both motion and stillness. 

This was a fun one to do because I had no idea how it would look until I took the shot. I put a snoot on my flash and had Amy hold it to the left of her head. It illuminated exactly what I wanted. This is normally the type of shot I would have done by myself, but it's so much easier having someone else in front of the lens. 

Alright, I cheated this week. This shot isn't from this week, or even this year. I took it after a run Amy and I did last winter in Madison. All of the ice frozen to her hair and eyelashes was from her breath freezing. It wasn't actually that cold out when we ran, but there was some perfect combination of cold and humidity.

Week 14: Becket, MA

Once again I'm taking the week off from the theme and just posting the seven best pictures I took while we were in Becket.

This one was taken while Gabe and Elizabeth were doing a puzzle. I like the layering here. 

This is definitely a favorite of mine. I purposefully tried to get the steering wheel blurred in the foreground. This was a rare photo where it matched the image in my head.

This is a panoramic shot of a quarry we hiked to. Again, I have a hard time photographing things that are beautiful because they are vast. I think a panoramic shot helps, but it still doesn't do it justice. Maybe if I had a fish-eye lens. 

Another one of my favorites. An HDR shot of an old rusted out truck. As soon as I saw this thing I knew it had to be HDR.

I was impressed that I was able to convince Gabe to actually sit in this car. Such a good sport. 

This was shot on another hike we took. I just really like the framing in this shot. 

Finally a nice wide shot of the river in Cambridge. I saw the sun shining off of the water and knew I wanted to silhouette the bridge and the buildings in the background. 

Week 13: Madison

I decided that since I was in Madison this week, I would disregard the suggested theme and just focus on Madison. It was fun to walk around campus (something I've done hundreds of times) and look at things with a different eye. Both of that of a photographer, as well as that of someone who has moved away and doesn't take home for granted. I ended up seeing things that I've never noticed before, even though I would walk by them every day.

I will always love the Madison skyline with the lake in the foreground. Some things are just ingrained.

I used to run across this bridge all the time, but never noticed the detail in the walls.

Nothing quite says Madison like the union terrace and the sailboats all lined up along the lake. I especially liked how these looked like mouths ready to eat. 

This coil of rope was sitting inside one of the stacked sailboats. It will probably sit like this, untouched, all winter. 

This is the lake-side of the union terrace. I tried my hand at doing a black-and-white HDR photo and I think it turned out pretty well. It brought out the contrast between the vines and the stone that wasn't easily captured with just a single exposure.

Another HDR shot, this time of a statue tucked into a corner of one of the buildings on library mall. There were four of these statues that I didn't notice the entire time I lived in Madison.

Manhole cover. What more can you say?